Don Cheadle On Being Targeted By Police: I Always Fit The Description, I’ve Had Guns Put To My Head

Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle On Being Targeted By Police: I Always Fit The Description, I’ve Had Guns Put To My Head

Hollywood vet and Marvel’s War Machine actor Don Cheadle (55) discussed his many interactions with the police amid the international conversation of racial inequality and police brutality. Don Cheadle, who will be receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2021, reflected on first moving to LA when the  LAPD chief of police was Daryl Gates and the controversial crackdown on drugs and gang violence was active. He said,

“When I moved to Los Angeles under Daryl Gates and the Hammer Program in L.A…I don’t even know if it was officially that it was coined that it was to stop and harass black and brown people, but that was the sort of unofficial, official interdepartmental terminology they used for the Hammer Program, what is for, and what it was designed to do, to intimidate and make sure everybody knew who was really running things in L.A.”

He continued,

“I got stopped more times than I can count, guns put to my head, I always fit the description. I used to finish their sentences. They’d go, ‘We’re stopping you because…’ and I’d go, ‘I know, I fit the description. I know.’”

Don Cheadle continued explaining how many of his friends had similar experiences:

“This is something that was happening over and over again. I had good friends that were almost killed by the police for nothing. So this is not soemthing that was new to me once all these videos started coming out. Things we knew very well that were happening, they just weren’t being filmed.”

Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle also said that the death of George Floyd was not a surprise to him:

“This is not something that was new to me, once all these videos started coming out. Things that we knew very well were happening…they just weren’t being filmed.

George Floyd

George Floyd died during a fatal arrest while in police custody last month. One officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with second-degree murder. George Floyd’s death sparked national outrage and civil unrest.

Don Cheadle also said he was picked on as a child because of his complexion when he and his family moved to the suburbs on Kansas City:

“That’s when a lot of bullying started when I was in school and definitely predicated on race. That’s when, you know, it started to be clear that, yeah, the cops were not on Team Don.”

What do you think about Don Cheadle’s experience with police? Let us know in the comments.